


Do Androids Dream of Dick?

by profoundalpacakitten



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Flirting, Dick Jokes, Fluff, Fumbling with Random Objects, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Minus Twenty on the Scale of Angst, Second-Hand Embarrassment, Stupidity, The Steeb and Borky Show is on the Road Again People, Wooing, awkward everything, dumbasses to lovers, price tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23722189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/profoundalpacakitten/pseuds/profoundalpacakitten
Summary: The story of how Bucky Barnes, beefy bookworm extraordinaire, and Steve Rogers, skinny cute bookstore clerk, romanced each other through the power of sci-fi and lewd price tag systems.Or the cracky Bookstore AU no one really asked for, but got anyway.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 35
Kudos: 179





	Do Androids Dream of Dick?

**Author's Note:**

> This all started because of _that_ particular tweet [here](https://twitter.com/MmedeSaintLoup/status/1245077505628930048), which I had the pleasure to discuss with fellow writers on discord.
> 
> Why did I think "oh yeah, this absolutely speaks to me as a great idea for fluff and stupidity"? I don't know, my brain is a mystery, it's the Krakatoa and sometimes erupts with explosive ideas like **what if this happened to steeb and borky, hmmmm?** and now here we are!
> 
> I need to thank the whole NASBB discord channel for cheering me on, and also I owe the world to [theemdash](/users/theemdash/) and [dreadlockholiday](/users/dreadlockholiday/) for betaing my text as I was getting ready to send it into the world, weirdo frenchy syntax and spelling errors and all. Thanks for the save, the awesome comments, I love you, \o/
> 
> And now onto the fic.

If Bucky had to define himself, he’d say he was a nerd; like a huge book nerd. People would probably glance at him and decide in the space of a heartbeat that he was a hobo — when unshaved — or a gym rat — shaved.

And maybe he was the kind of guy who hit the gym on the regular. Perhaps were people not that far off the mark. 

But he was also a sci-fi reader and a gigantic geekosaurus. What can you do, beauty and brains, right? 

He was also a creature of habits and his routine, which he’d taken great pains to establish after such a long time in the army, was as such: close down the hardware store, hit the gym — do not skip leg day—, drink shaker number one, go to that cute peaceful cafe bakery and indulge — because fuck leg day, also urgh cardio —, drink shaker two, and every Monday, swing by his favourite bookstore, and buy a book, which would be read during that week or would be added to the teetering to-be-read pile, no one could know, and no one would, except Alpine, that fucker, who always bumped forcefully into the pile as if trying to firmly stagger the stacked-to-be-reads pile into a to-be-restacked-to-be-reads hill. 

That careful plan rarely hit a snag, and more often than not, snags could be avoided or easily resolved. Today was buy-a-book day, and nothing appealed to him in his to-be-reads, mostly because Alpine had recently taken to sleeping on top of the pile and Bucky was a big beefy softy, okay. So he wouldn’t be able to skip the buying of the book because his already bought books had become a mattress for a very white, very fluffy ball of disdain. 

For snags could happen, it happened today, on his buy-a-book day. 

The bookstore was closed. Would be closed for a long time even. 

A message scrawled in sharpie on a white paper had been taped to the window. 

_Hello dear customers,  
The shop will be closed until further notice due to family issues.  
Please don’t hesitate to go browse at Inkstains on the corner of eleventh.  
Take care dear customers. We love you.  
W&P_

Holy shit, he hoped Wanda and Pietro were fine. 

This was why, on this fine Monday evening, he found himself lost in the unfamiliar territory of _Inkstains_ , trying to get his bearings and find the goddamn sci-fi aisle. The bookstore wasn’t that huge but the books weren’t arranged as he… liked. Which made him sound anally retentive but whatever. Sue him. 

He browsed for a moment and finally found the Philip K. Dick novel he had been searching for in the first place. As usual he looked at the cover, flicking through the first few pages, humming satisfyingly to himself, before looking at the back cover of the paperback. Raving reviews interspersed with references to the Blade Runner adaptation, and the price tag. The weird price tag, you might say. 

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF  
DICK

“What?” Bucky murmured to himself. He looked around and not far away were some C and A authors. He picked up _The complete novels of Ray Cummings_ and _The gods themselves_ and looked at the back cover. For reasons. 

Investigative reasons. 

He liked to understand things okay? And his mind could get snagged on the littlest things since his discharge. Like weirdly aggressively pornographic price tags. 

THE GODS THEMSELVES  
ASIM

THE COMPLETE NOVELS  
CUMM

Oh… Oh okay, so the first four letters of author’s names. Seemed legit. He just didn’t know what to make of a back cover which screamed CUMM in capitals. The excess M looked like someone was delighting in the first three letters and — _alright time to move on Barnes_. 

Well, lewd price tags aside, he really wanted some old school sci-fi. And you couldn’t get older schoolish than Cummings. 

Or CUMM. 

Haha. 

Oh my god, he was five. 

Bringing the books to the front desk he tried to school his features but his efforts kind of fell by the wayside so far that they rolled down the ditch and drowned there. 

The clerk had been taping those damned price tags on a stack of books when Bucky arrived, so the guy raised his gaze to Bucky and, hot damn, was the cute twink season open now? And nobody told him? The guy — Steve his nametag said, Steve — had short blonde hair, longer on top, falling into his face all wispy and soft, and sky-blue eyes, or cornflower, maybe, Bucky didn’t know, he owned a hardware store dammit, okay? His lips looked so pink and Bucky had lost all his synonyms and his thoughts kind of fizzled to nothing. 

Bucky’s breath caught. In front of him Steve stared back at him, kind of slack-jawed. His gaze snagged on Bucky’s arms before running over his torso and halting again on his chest. Steve’s gaze never left the general region of Bucky’s rack and awkwardness fell over them like a heavy cloud of embarrassment. 

“Hi.” Was his voice breathy? Bucky felt like his greeting would qualify for a ten on the bodice rippers scale of ‘ _he said breathily_ ’. 

Steve stared at him some more, and then looked behind him, as if to check that there wasn’t another bookstore clerk in this same bookstore. He turned back. “Hi?” 

“Yes, hi. Hey, uhm.” Oh my god, what was he supposed to say? What were social norms even? “Books!” 

Steve nodded fervently. Stopped. Checked him out from head to toe. Nodded again. “Yes books! I- We sell them! Those. Some. We do.” 

Oh god. 

Bucky thumped his three books on the counter making Steve jump in surprise. Steve seemed to recover his countenance, and the awkwardness began packing its stuff, and getting ready to leave the premises, when Steve turned the books over to scan the codes. 

The first one was the Cummings book. 

Awkwardness stayed very present. 

“Uhhhhh…” Steve looked up; Bucky stared at him. Some blushing may have happened; however, just like trees falling in a forest make no sound if nobody heard them, if nobody was here to see the mutual blushing, it kind of didn’t happen. 

“I. It’s.” Bucky made a vague gesture towards the book. “It’s rare. Finding.” Hand gesture. “Cummings books.” He choked on the name. 

Steve nodded again and swiftly scanned the code then got ready to scan the second one but froze. 

Bucky gnawed on his lip as he watched the clerk spontaneously combust in front of him. “Maybe we should acknowledge the elephant in the room.” 

Steve looked back up so quickly that he may have given himself whiplash. “That this four-letter system is shit?” 

“That. And also, androids certainly dream of dick at some point, right? Haha!” Was this as painful to Steve as it was to him? Because he really was suffering over here. “Who wouldn’t?” _Please no, mouth, why do you speak?_

Steve looked like he didn’t know what to do with his hands, himself or the books. But he still answered, as if startled out of his blush-fest. “Yeah who, who wouldn’t, haha? Straight people? I wouldn’t know.” He suddenly kind of seemed on the verge of setting the store on fire to distract Bucky during his escape from this plane of reality. 

“Haha, straight people, right?” Oh god, holy shitsnacks, Jesus Roosevelt Christ. This conversation basically amounted to two people on a mad rush to be the first to jump off a cliff anyway. 

Silence stretched between them, with the added fresh knowledge of the very real weirdass involuntary coming-outs. And the very obvious fact that they both were flirting-school dropouts. Also, lots of thirst for each other but of the fumbling variety. 

Steve inhaled suddenly, as if emerging from a five-minute free-dive record, and quickly scanned the last two books without looking at Bucky. He then absorbed himself in punching the lights out of his register, scanning Bucky’s card and then shoving the three offending books towards Bucky. “Here you go sir, thank you, please goodbye, come back. Sorry. Please.” His tone screamed for Bucky to ease his suffering but Bucky couldn’t because Bucky had already suffered enough too, anyway. 

Also he didn’t think it would be appropriate to pop a boner over the cutest guy to ever cute so he made like a glacier and slowed his roll, and, mustering all the smoothness he had left, and even some more smooth he could have used for next week, he bid Steve a polite but warm goodbye and beat a hasty retreat. 

*-*-*-*-*-*  
*-*-*  
*

The following Monday, Bucky opened the store and spent the whole day asking himself if his thirst for sci-fi and adorable blonde-headed skinny clerks would supersede the very real possibility that meeting said clerk would provoke another wave of painful social interactions. Logan had to restack stuff several times and ended up gruffly telling him to go add some numbers up “or something, bub, this shelf stacking is a goddamn shame.”

Bucky did not skip leg day. Bucky did not skip his favourite coffee shop. And Bucky had to buy a new book because the Cummings novels felt kind of dry, the Asimov novel hadn’t lasted for very long and he couldn’t look at _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ without reliving that bookstore moment and burning from second-hand shame. 

He browsed for some time and clucked his tongue in triumph when he saw the novel. He brought it to the desk, where Steve was doodling on a piece of paper. Sliding _Slan_ onto the counter he rallied all his smoothness potential and smiled. 

Steve looked up, and up, and stared again a bit before looking down at the novel. He threw a dubious glance up at Bucky and turned the book so he could scan the code. 

He snorted. “What? No lewd barcodes today?” 

Bucky pointed his thumb towards the sci-fi aisle, still smiling. “Well I can still get the one book with a price tag stating Crash and Ball, you know.” 

“It’s really too early in the evening for CBT,” said Steve absent-mindedly as he typed on the register, and then he must have caught on to what he just said and looked at Bucky’s raised eyebrows in panic. “Please, ignore what just happened. It doesn’t exist. Reality is a construct.” 

“I feel like I need to confess to something so we can stay on the same level of self-humiliation.” 

“Please don’t. I’ll pay you in books.” 

“To shut up?” 

“Yes, please.” 

Bucky brought back _Crash_ from J. G. Ballard. 

Steve didn’t even try to look at the tag screaming: 

CRASH  
BALL

Before scanning the book. “You’re an asshole.” He slid the two books towards Bucky. “I’ll double the price of all lewd price tag books if you do this again.” 

*-*-*-*-*-*  
*-*-*  
*

Week three post That Disaster No One Should Address began on a hopeful note for Bucky. Surfing on the nearly normal and funny interactions he’d had with Steve last week he sauntered to the counter with two carefully selected books.

Steve greeted him awkwardly at first and took the books but didn’t scan them immediately. He closed his eyes, looked like he was counting internally to ten, then pasted on a smile and asked, “Did you enjoy _Slan_?” 

_Oh god yes, known territory!_ Bucky smiled sunnily. “It was sooo good.” Steve smiled back more naturally then, eyes shining brightly. “I fucking **love** those golden age sci-fi books. It really feels like creativity was endless then.” 

Steve hummed in agreement, “I know, right? Some people hate how van Vogt tended to have huge overarching conspiracies in his novels though, or those Shyamalan-esque plot twists.” 

Bucky waved his hand dismissively. “Whatever. _Slan_ ’s ending was gold. Also, it felt like the perfect balance between thriller and sci-fi, the writing really merged the two genres seamlessly.” 

Steve slid Bucky’s books towards the register. “Then you should try the Null-Ā books, some say nothing can top _Slan_ , but I really felt like Null-Ā was more matured.” He looked down. 

Silence ensued. 

Steve scoffed. “RODD and RIDE? Seriously?” 

“Well what’s wrong with some good old Gene Roddenberry and Christopher Ride?” 

“This is passive aggressive pornography.” 

“You shouldn’t feel attacked by your own tags. You tape them on yourself!” Bucky sniggered. 

“And yet they only have a double entendre when it’s you that brings them to me.” 

*-*-*-*-*-*  
*-*-*  
*

Week four of That Flirting Thing opened with two new books that Bucky had struggled to find in the sci-fi aisle.

Steve squinted at the price tags. “Is that a euphemism for a handjob?” 

Bucky shrugged. “I absolutely don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Steve lightly tapped his finger on the cover of _Boba Fett: Maze of Deception_. “So it is in no way a conscious choice on your part that you just so happened to want to read the —great choice by the way — _Man in the High Castle_ , from our dear Philip K. Dick and also… that ridiculous spinoff from Elizabeth Hand?” 

Bucky leaned on the counter, grinning proudly. “I am an eclectic reader.” 

Steve scanned the first book and looked Bucky squarely in the eyes. “Hand.” He scanned the second book. “Dick.” 

Bucky’s grin broadened. “Try and find an author with a name starting with ‘Job’, I dare you.” 

Steve smiled at his antics and pushed the books to him. “Do you even read them?” 

Bucky scoffed, offended. “Well yes, I do, I read _Slan_ remember? What else should I do with them?” Let’s not talk about Alpine’s nest in his Dragonlance book collection. 

“I don’t even know, dude, you just came out of nowhere one day, with your arms like this is a gun show and began throwing innuendo-laced price tags at me.” Steve tried to punch in a new price tag. “You could be playing a long con or something.” 

“A long con about dick subtext?” 

Steve raised his arms in the air. “How should I know? Your messages are four letters long! I don’t know you; I don’t even know your name!” 

“Your price tags only contain four letters, what else should I do? Also, I can give you my name!” 

“Well I sure hope you’re able to do it.” 

They looked at each other, resolute in their decision to ignore the ridiculousness of their discussion. Bucky suddenly walked off into the bookstore, ignoring Steve’s indignant, “Hey”. He found what he was looking for and brought it back to Steve. 

“What the fuck?” 

“I’ll take this one too.” 

Steve looked down. “What.” 

GOING POSTAL  
PRAT

Steve snorted and scanned the last book. “Jerk.” He said fondly. 

*-*-*-*-*-*  
*-*-*  
*

“I’m dreading what I’m going to see here,” Steve said without looking down at the books Bucky had just put on the counter today, on week five of That Thing They Had Going On.

Could someone lose himself in the eyes of somebody else? Bucky didn’t know because Bucky read Carl Sagan over Jane Austen, the heathen. He lost himself in Steve’s blue gaze anyway. “You can look.” 

Steve looked down. He frowned. “I…” He turned the books several times over. “I see no vague innuendo.” He looked up, a bit puzzled. “ _Collected novellas of Malcolm Jameson_ and _Interplanetary Hunter_ from Arthur K. Barnes? It kind of cements the idea that you’re into nineteen thirties pulp but…” He tilted his head and showed Bucky the third book. “That Buckell thing, I’m telling you, you’re not gonna like it.” 

“I uhm…” Bucky knew this had been a mistake. Their last interaction had been going smoothly and lulled him into a false sense of security, making him think he could be “quirky” and “fun” and not socially awkward. 

Steve turned the books over again, oblivious to the pit of despair Bucky had fallen into. “I really like those pulps. You don’t know how hard it is to get some of them sometimes. New editions tend to be sent out in small numbers.” He scanned the books. 

“It’s my name.” 

Steve froze. Looked at him. Like every other time they looked at each other, his gaze made a pit stop at Bucky’s biceps and pecs, as if travelling upwards was so hard his eyes needed a rest. 

“The uhm.” Bucky pointed at the book covers like a dweeb. “The tags. Like. It’s.” 

Steve looked back down. “Jame Barn Buck?” 

“... Can I go lie down and die over there?” 

“So, I guess, James? Buckbarn?” 

“Yes. No.” Bucky hid his face behind his hands. That would teach him to try to be clever. “Is there a volunteer here to kill me swiftly and without pain?” he called. 

Steve was now leaning on the counter, piecing together the anagram of Bucky’s name and also relishing the sight of Bucky squirming. “Buck Jamebarn?” 

Bucky raised his eyes to the ceiling, praying that the earth would open itself and swallow him into a dark pit of numbness. “It’s James Barnes, and people call me Bucky, but you can call me ‘that weirdo over there,’ I won’t be offended.” 

Steve’s eyes softened and he chuckled. “Okay, Bucky. But please put the Buckell one back. You won’t like it.” 

Bucky fled towards the shelves to put the offending book back. 

*-*-*-*-*-*  
*-*-*  
*

On week six, and because Bucky had consulted with Logan who had just told him to “get a fucking grip, bub”, Bucky came into the bookstore with renewed spirits and bravado. This would go great. Two disasters meant he had used his disaster quota, right?

He was slurping his smoothie when he reached _Inkstains_. He came to the counter and winked as Steve looked up. Steve let out a breathy “Hey Buckeeee…” then gasped, startled, blushed and looked frozen for one second, before he tried to gather all the books on the counter in his arms which could only end in disaster since Steve had pretty spindly arms and there were a lot of books. 

This was pretty extreme even for Steve. 

Bucky stood there like a very muscled question mark and watched, bemused, as the blonde swept the books in his arms, tried to catch one that was going to fall on the floor, miscalculated, teetered back, then left, then overshot his balance and disappeared behind the counter in an avalanche of books. 

What the fuck? 

“Steve, you all right there?” Bucky approached the war zone with caution and leaned over the desk to look at Steve, buried under his books. 

“Please turn around and never come back.” 

Bucky tilted his head quizzically. “What are you even doing?” 

Steve glared up at Bucky from his prone position and then put an open book on his face to hide himself. “Right now, dying of embarrassment.” 

“... Do you need some help over there?” He didn’t wait for an answer, and came around the desk to help Steve while Steve was mumbling “I don’t need help dying, thanks.” 

He was about to help stack back the books when Steve suddenly snatched the first book from his hands. “No!” 

“What?” 

“Just! Don’t… Don’t look.” 

So Bucky looked. 

“Steve?” 

“No.” 

“Did you have a price tag incident?” 

“Go away.” Steve pushed a book in Bucky’s face, therefore placing the tag so very close to his eyes. 

FOUNDATION AND EMPIR  
ASSS

“Steve.” 

“I will make you eat every single tag I unglue from those fucking books, I swear.” 

Bucky grabbed the book and grinned in Steve’s red offended face. “Are you propositioning me?” 

Steve crossed his arms on his chest petulantly. “You suck.” 

“I do.” 

Bucky ended up helping Steve retag all the Asimov books. Nothing happened, but if their arms brushed together and sometimes they reached for the same book and it felt like where they had touched his skin was afire, well no one could judge them, and also Bucky, who still hadn’t read Jane Austen, managed nonetheless to twig that he was starring in his very own romance novel. 

*-*-*-*-*-*  
*-*-*  
*

Still week six; because Quill had said “wooing waits for no man” yesterday when Logan had finally had enough of Bucky’s angsty questions and redirected his “Cosmo Shit” over to Peter, Bucky came to visit _Inkstains_ on Wednesday, hoping that Steve would be in there.

“This is not a book.” Steve poked the box with one long finger, then stared dubiously at Bucky. 

“Yes, because it is a pastry.” 

“I could have food allergies.” 

“I could have a case of the sads if you refused.” 

“I could choke on the pastry and die.” 

“Yeah, and then where would we be, right?” 

Steve kept his poker face intact and unfolded the paper wrapped around his pastry. “Is this…?”

“It’s an éclair Steve.” 

Steve frowned. “It’s a dick shaped éclair!” He made a show of displaying the pastry in front of Bucky, pointing to the sort of bulby pointy bit that could be a glans and the blobby part on the other end. 

Bucky raised his hands in mock surrender. “Well I don’t know Steve, you seem to read a lot of innuendos in innocent stuff.” 

Steve laughed, then bit into the weird bulb deformity at the end of the pastry, which could or could not be a choux ballsack. So tasty. “Well I’m not the one who asked if androids dream of dick.” 

“Let’s not allude to that fateful day.” Bucky smiled widely. 

“Wow Bucky, it’s so good!” 

“Yeah, the baker gave it to me for half the price. Told me he botched that one.” Steve laughed a bit and took another bite. “I told him I had someone in mind that would appreciate the shape as much as the taste.” 

Steve hummed and broke the glans part, then held it out for Bucky to take. Bucky looked Steve in the eye and they had a moment. 

One of those _romance novel_ moments, which Steve totally saw, but Bucky kind of missed because, Bucky, for fuck’s sake, read Jane Austen dammit! 

Feeling bold, Bucky, while holding Steve’s gaze, ate the éclair bit directly from Steve’s fingers. 

Steve swallowed the last of his éclair bite, nearly choking himself. “Holy shit.” Steve murmured. 

They looked at each other for a while. 

“Come on, Steve, what’s a guy gotta do to get a kiss around here?” 

Steve looked like he just had a minor breakdown, then rallied and fumbled for an answer. “Buy a book written by Kissinger?” 

Silence stretched thin between them. 

Since nothing was happening, Steve began to go red, whereas Bucky, who had used all his stockpiles of suave comebacks and come-ons kind of floundered. Because their romance seemed to be stuck under the sign of the Aries in a porcelain shop, heavily influenced with stupid baby goat vibes. 

Bucky quickly made an escape towards the aisles of the bookshop, vaguely hearing Steve whining to himself about how shitty it was to walk through the valley of the shadow of death alone. He managed to find the book, come back to the counter and then slap the random Henry Kissinger non-fiction thing on the desk in record time. 

Then he grabbed a flustered Steve by the neck and finally fucking kissed him. 

And it was glorious. 

*-*-*-*-*-*  
*-*-*  
*

Week… whatever, who’s counting?

“Hey, Steve!” 

Steve ran out from the storage room, then skidded to a stop at the desk. “Hey!” His hand fluttered over his hair and then to his glasses which nearly fell to the floor and he blushed again, because after weeks of dating he still hadn’t got a lid on his tendency to either stare with fascination at Bucky’s muscles or fumble with the nearest available object. 

“I have a proposition for you.” He deposited _Ubik_ on the desk, and a rose. 

Steve boggled for several seconds, then, “Are you tempering the offer for dick with a flower?” 

“There are no authors whose name begins with ‘would you like to Netflix and chill with your boyfriend?’, so, yeah.” 

“Yeah, okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“Yes. To the dick. And rose.” 

*-*-*-*-*-*  
*-*-*  
*

Steve had been sleeping soundly after one of those epic scale catastrophes they both called dates — so far, they hadn’t managed to top the third one also known as in the annals of history as “the book signing gone wrong”. Catastrophic dates often ended up with phenomenal sex, so Steve was _wiped_. So when he was roused from sleep by the sound of Bucky plonking his book on his dresser — because the asshole liked to read in bed early in the morning —, Steve was not amused.

“Hrmmm, Bucky, what the fuck?” Steve glared blearily at his boyfriend of several months, who was currently hugging him quite tightly to his chest, then at the clock, which proudly displayed that it was an ungodly nine AM on a Sunday. “Buckyyyyyuuurrrg…”

Alpine meowed from his Dragonlance palace in the corner of Bucky’s bedroom. 

“Sorry, didn’t want to wake you up.” 

“Well you snuggled me into wakefulness, could be worse.” Steve yawned hugely. 

Bucky whisper-mumbled something into Steve’s shoulder. 

“What?” 

Silence, then Bucky must have repeated the thing but it still sounded more like a very shy cow muffled mooing. 

“What is oo-moo-moo, Bucky?” Steve snorted. Bucky suddenly raised his head, and Steve kind of startled at his visible full body blush. “What’s going on?” 

Bucky let him go and turned towards his dresser. He grabbed a book and shoved it in Steve’s face. 

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF  
LOVE

Said the price tag, looking quite innocent like this. 

“Oh.” Steve raised his eyes to look at Bucky, who had buried his face in his pillow and was maybe perhaps trying to smother himself with it. “Did you just confess your love with early twentieth century cosmic horror?” 

“Oo-moo-oo.” 

“Hey.” Steve’s heart was bursting. He rolled over, half onto Bucky, and brushed back some of his longish hair. Bucky turned his head a bit, so only one ice blue eye could peek out to Steve. “That’s the best way you could have said it to me.” Steve kissed him softly on the bit of rosy cheek available. Hmmm stubble, nom nom. “I love you too.” 

And that’s how Bucky Barnes, beefy bookworm extraordinaire, and Steve Rogers, skinny cute bookstore clerk, romanced each other through the power of sci-fi.


End file.
